Developmental evolution of metazoan bodyplans¶
Valentine, J. W., Erwin, & Jablonski, D. (1996). Developmental evolution of metazoan bodyplans: The fossil evidence. Developmental Biology, 173(2), 373-381.
Cited by¶
1 citation across 1 artifact.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Hierarchical Decomposability
- At each level there are coherent units with high within-level coupling and bounded-nonzero cross-level coupling — the levels do interact (a hormone produced at the organ level affects molecular processes), but the cross-level coupling is weak enough that biologists can productively study one level at a time. This is hierarchical decomposability, not modularity alone — a single membrane-bounded cell is modular, but the recursive nesting across seven scopes with consistent within-level-dominates-cross-level coupling at each is what makes the organism tractably analyzable end-to-end, a structural commitment Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski (1996) document across the evolution of metazoan body plans.
This sourceDocuments how the hierarchical level structure of metazoan bodyplans — cell type, tissue, organ, organism — emerged during the Neoproterozoic–Cambrian radiation through innovations in developmental control mechanisms including the Hox gene cluster.
- At each level there are coherent units with high within-level coupling and bounded-nonzero cross-level coupling — the levels do interact (a hormone produced at the organ level affects molecular processes), but the cross-level coupling is weak enough that biologists can productively study one level at a time. This is hierarchical decomposability, not modularity alone — a single membrane-bounded cell is modular, but the recursive nesting across seven scopes with consistent within-level-dominates-cross-level coupling at each is what makes the organism tractably analyzable end-to-end, a structural commitment Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski (1996) document across the evolution of metazoan body plans.
Verification¶
This reference passed the adversarial substantiation pipeline: it was checked to exist and to support the claim it is attached to. See how references were verified.
Registry ID ref:003e356e8a44 · see in the full table